The
massive dreadnought burned in space as escape pods fled from its
armored flanks and automated weaponry continued to fire. Fleet ships,
pitch black and dark as the space surrounding them, continued to
harry the much larger warship. Its escorts and fellow ships of the
line had died very near the gas giant it now orbited, and now, in the
last moments of it's life, the ship sadly fought on. Flashes of laser
light and balls of plasma struck out blindly at swift attackers, but
to no avail and finally an arsenal of missiles thundered down from a
nearby battlecruiser-sized warship, released the final blow. Icy
black space briefly lit up all around as million-degree explosions
tore the lumbering dreadnought apart. Finally, as the brilliant
release of matter and anti-matter abated, darkness fell again, fell
to cover the escaping lifepods with their precious cargo....

"I'm
scared", the massive man in the uniform of a Pact Marine stated
flatly.

Looking at
him for a moment, Captain Daladier slightly smiled, trying to
reassure the man as he looked back at the red-orange atmosphere of
the gas giant that completely filled the lifepod port. The Marine was
huge, easily massing over 250 pounds and standing over six feet in
height, although his uniform was tattered and covered in smoky
debris. The smell of the smoke was strong and it reeked of burned
rubber and blood. His nose flared at the stench and he slowly sat
back down into the emergency pods' seats, nursing his injured back.
Suddenly, screaming pain shot up his back as he finally rested his
posterior on the hard plastic seat, wishing silently for some
cushioning, and he let his mind wander.

How could
I have lost my ship? Was there anything I could have done
differently? How many of the crew survived? Oh god...

Lost in his
thoughts, captain Erik Daladier barely noticed the Marine sitting
back down across the small cramped compartment.

"We're
trapped in the gravity well of the planet, aren't we?"

For a moment,
the Captain didn't look at the man, then glanced up at the blinking
displays on the pods' wall. Clearly, and frequently, the red alarm
light was urgently blinking, indicating that they were indeed trapped
in the planets' terrible pull. He looked down for a moment at the
gray-green plating on the pods' floor and said in a sad voice,

"Yeah.....yeah, that's right."

The young
man, a corporal who was only in his twenties by Daladier estimation,
looked at him with fear in his eyes. His hands were tightly clasped
around what looked like his Marine beret.

"We're
gonna die, aren't we?"

Not wanting
to look at the young man, Daladier closed his eyes for a moment. The
rest of the fleet had been destroyed by those damn organic warships,
something that no one had seen before, and there was almost no hope
of being rescued by the time the life pods' engines ran out of fuel
trying to compensate for the massive planets' drag. In fact, if he
did the math correctly, and he did, they would be dead within the
hour as the pod was finally pulled deeper into the deadly atmosphere
of the gas giant. He opened his eyes again and looked at the Marine.

Since
Daladier had taken command of the Renaissance a year ago, he
had only seen Marines on the bridge three times. A Marine detachment
aboard a navy ship sleeps in its own separate compartment--away from
the ship's crew--and operates the onboard brig, or jail; fires the
guns during battle, and provides all-around security for the ship.

He opened his
eyes slowly and looked at the young man with a regretful face and
said simply,

"Yeah."

The Marine
looked away then, out the pods' only portal, maybe trying to keep his
fear or tears from view. He began shaking lightly as Daladier
watched, and the Captains' heart wrenched at the sight. How many
more people would die?

Daladier
lightly coughed then, hoping to distract the young man from the
immediate future. The beefy Marine looked back at the Captain who was
wearing the gray and gold of the Pact naval service.

"What's
your name son?"

"Mitchell,
Sir, Aaron Mitchell."

"And
where are you from?"

The young
man, brown hair amiss and deep black eyes staring, was silent for a
moment, and then said with embarrassment,

"Athos,
Sir".

Daladier
paused for a moment, shocked at the huge Marines' answer. Athos was a
single-sex world, an all male world. Daladier had heard of
Athos, and the cracks made about its .....odd inhabitants.
Reproduction on the planet was supposedly done through artificial
wombs, and the sex of the baby(always male) was preselected at birth.
Genetic engineering enabled the Athosians to grow huge, to survive
the incredibly hostile weather on the planet. That weather, with over
200 mile per hour winds, was the main reason many Athosian immigrated
offworld he assumed but it was their enormous size that made
them the best fighters, and hence their regular induction into the
Pact Marines. He had heard snickers about Athosians in the officers
mess, but this young man didn't seem too bad. He himself had grown up
on a farming world in Recife Cluster and had never met a "one-sexer"
before.

Daladier's
face didn't change during but his mind did, and he asked, mainly out
of curious disgust.

"Are you
married?"

The Marine, a
obviously good-looking man, held up his left hand, showing a golden
band on his ring finger, and then let it silently drop. He continued
to eye the Captain for a moment, and then said,

"I'm not
going to see him again...am I?"

Shaken by the
revelation that this absolutely huge Marine was a same-sexer, he
couldn't say anything, merely shook his head slowly, negatively.
Daladier then let out a huge sigh, and leaned back against the
ice-cold bulkhead as the pods' jets started to fire again, trying in
vain to negate the gas giants' deadly pull.

Earlier in
the year, Admiral Spencer had declared the Renaissance his
flagship, the command center for the enormous resources of Fifth
Fleet. Spencer liked the Renaissance's speed, and he liked her
age. As an older Admirable-class superdreadnought, he reasoned
that if his presence was needed in an emerging hot zone, she could be
withdrawn from battle without disrupting the battle plan.

Daladier
himself liked to describe his ship as a "happy ship", and
his easygoing nature was extraordinary for a naval Captain. Most
commanders, enlisted men joked, were either big SOBs or little SOBs.
Daladier, however, was neither. He was known for his egalitarian
spirit and for his graciousness. When new crew members came aboard,
he made an effort to greet them by name, saying, "Welcome,
crewman. We're going to have a happy cruise."

But it wasn't
happy anymore, and he began to think of his sister, and her two
wonderful children, and how much he was going to miss them. He
himself had no children and wasn't married, except to the Navy, and
now he was going to die. And so was the young man across from him.
The Marine was looking at his combat boots, not saying anything, and
Daladier wanted to somehow comfort the young man, to help him. But he
couldn't do either one; their circumstances were impossible to
overcome, and as he watched the soldier, the Marine looked up, right
into his eyes.

Tears were in
them, tears in the eyes of a Marine. The realization had set in,
Daladier was sure. And his heart broke for the man. He thought for a
moment, and then spoke.

"Do you
have children, with your....?"

"Husband,
yeah. Two boys. Twins, both four."

"I'm
sorry," Daladier spoke, with sincere meaning in his voice.

"I
know," the huge Marine spoke one last time. And they continued
their journey...